DK History: History Of The United States
Native peoples lived throughout the Americas for centuries—arriving from Asia by a land bridge—and they developed complex, diverse cultures. The arrival of Europeans completely changed their way of life. Soon after Columbus landed in North America, other European explorers followed. Within a century, European countries were planning permanent colonies in North America.
c. AD 1000 Leif Eriksson is the first European to set foot in North America
c. 1400 Native tribes move into the southwest
1492 Christopher Columbus sails west from Spain for Asia and lands in the West Indies
1513 Ponce de León claims Florida for Spain
1519–21 Hernán Cortés conquers the Aztec Empire
1532 Francisco Pizarro conquers the Inca Empire
1585–87 Two unsuccessful attempts are made to colonize Roanoke Island
1607 Jamestown founded
1620 Mayflower compact; Pilgrims found Plymouth
1621 First Thanksgiving
1660 King Charles II of England assigns land to be sold to colonists
1692 Salem witch trials
1754 Outbreak of French and Indian War
1763 Treaty of Paris ends French claims in North America
1779 Boston Massacre
1773 Tea Act; Rebellious colonists stage the Boston Tea Party
1774 The 13 colonies form First Continental Congress
1775–83 American Revolution begins at Lexington and Concord; ends after British surrender at Yorktown
July 4, 1776 Declaration of Independence signed
1781 Articles of Confederation ratified
1787 Constitution signed
1789 George Washington elected first US president
1791 Bill of Rights ratified
1803 Louisiana Purchase doubles land area of US
1812–14 US at war with Great Britain; British burn Washington, D.C.; “Star-Spangled Banner” written
1820 Missouri Compromise signed in attempt to avoid crisis over slavery
1823 Monroe Doctrine
1830 Indian Removal Act creates “Indian territories”
1840 Telegraph first used
1841 Oregon trail opens
1846 US war against Mexico; US borders extended to Pacific Ocean
1849 California Gold Rush
1861 Civil War erupts when southern states secede from Union, forming Confederate States of America
1863 Battle of Gettysburg; Gettysburg Address; Emancipation Proclamation
1865 13th Amendment abolishes slavery
1865 Lee surrenders to Grant; President Lincoln assassinated
1867 Reconstruction Act
1868 14th Amendment grants citizenship to African Americans
1869 Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads meet at Promontory Point
1870 15th Amendment gives African Americans the right to vote
1876 Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone
1879 Thomas Edison makes the electric light bulb
1882 Chinese Exclusion Act
1886 Haymarket riot; American Federation of Labor organized
1890 Frontier closes; massacre of American Indians at Wounded Knee
1898 Spanish-American War; US acquires the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Hawaii
1903 First flight by Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk
1913 16th Amendment places federal tax on income
1914 Panama Canal opens
1915 German U-boat sinks the Lusitania
1916 Child Labor Act
1917 US enters World War I; end of Progressivism
1918 End of World War I
1919 18th Amendment begins Prohibition
1920 19th Amendment gives women the vote
1927 Charles Lindbergh makes flight across Atlantic; first “talkie” released
1929 Stock market crashes; Great Depression
1933 Great Plains become the “Dust Bowl”; President Roosevelt launches the New Deal
1939 Germany invades Czechoslovakia and Poland; Great Britain and France declare war on Germany
Dec. 7, 1941 Pearl Harbor attacked; US enters war
1942 Relocation of Japanese-Americans begins; Bataan Death March; Battles of Coral Sea and Midway
June 6, 1944 D-Day
May 8, 1945 Germany surrenders
Aug. 6, 1945 US drops atomic bomb on Hiroshima
Aug. 9, 1945 US drops atomic bomb on Nagasaki
Aug. 15, 1945 Japan surrenders
1948 Marshall Plan implemented; Berlin airlift
1950 McCarthy hearings begin; start of Korean War
1954 Supreme Court ruling on Brown v. Board of Education
1955 Montgomery bus boycott
1957 Sputnik I launched
1958 First American satellite goes into orbit
1961 Bay of Pigs fiasco
1962 Cuban Missile Crisis
1963 March on Washington, D.C.; Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivers “I Have a Dream” speech
Nov. 22, 1963 President Kennedy assassinated
1965 American troops sent to Vietnam
1968 My Lai massacre
Apr. 4, 1968 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. assassinated; violence erupts in 125 cities
1969 Apollo 11 crew lands on the Moon
1972 Watergate break-in
1974 President Nixon resigns
1975 US personnel evacuated from Saigon; South Vietnam surrenders
1979 Global oil shortage; gas rationing
1979 Iranian rebels seize US Embassy
1981 Scientists identify Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS)
Jan. 28, 1986 Space shuttle Challenger explodes
1986 Iran-Contra scandal
1989 Berlin Wall torn down; fall of communism in eastern Europe begins
1991 US leads coalition in Operation Desert Storm
1992 US troops join UN mission in Somalia
1995 Oklahoma City bombing
1998 President Clinton impeached, later acquitted
Sept. 11, 2001 Two hijacked planes destroy the World Trade Center towers; a third hits the Pentagon; a fourth crashes in a field in Pennsylvania
2001 US and Britain bomb Afghanistan; Taliban government collapses
2003 US and British forces invade Iraq; Baath party government under Saddam Hussein collapses
The framers of the Constitution created a federal government with three branches so that any two could prevent the third from gaining too much power:
| The judicial branch consists of the Supreme Court and other federal courts. |
| The legislative branch is the Congress, made up of the Senate (two senators per state) and the House of Representatives (numbers based on state population). |
| The executive branch is the president and the Cabinet. |
